After decades out of print, Passion-one of June Jordan's most important collections-has returned to readers. Originally entitled, passion: new poems, 1977-1980, this volume holds key works including "Poem About My Rights," "Poem About Police Violence," "Free Flight," and an essay by the poet, "For the Sake of the People's Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us." June Jordan was a fierce advocate for the safety and humanity of women and Black people, and for the freedom of all people-and Barack Obama made a line from this book famous: "We are the ones we have been waiting for." With love and humor, via lyrics and rants, she calls for nothing less than radical compassion. This new edition includes a foreword by Nicole Sealey.
"Collected here are blazing examples of poetry as activism, stanzas that speak truth to power and speak out against violence against women and police brutality. But Jordan also speaks on the significance of hope, mixing, as Brown puts it, 'the doom and devastation made mundane through media with the hard decision to love anyway.'" - O: The Oprah Magazine
"With the publication of her collected poems, one can survey the sheer scope of a woman who merged personal and political levels of expression with unyielding conviction." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Jordan brings to life people, places, things, and books that nourished her mind and character." - Los Angeles Times
"Though best known as a poet, she wore many other hats. All of her identities were rooted in a passion for social justice-accompanied by the belief that the powerless could eventually prevail ? In the words of this volume's title, her activities were "directed by desire"-in defense of truth and justice." - The Washington Post
"Skeptical, angry, and sick of unexamined beliefs and hypocrisy, Jordan writes warrior poems: muscled, coiled, and unerringly accurate." - The Booklist
Jordan's poems are "so immediate and vibrant in their effect that they seem to be happening right there on the page." - The Kenyon Review
'The energy and seriousness of these poems are impressive and, like the essays, they are the work of a writer of integrity and will." - Darryl Pinckney, The New York Times
"She has comforted, explained, described, wrestled with, taught and made us laugh out loud before we wept. . . . I am talking about a span of forty years of tireless activism coupled with and fueled by flawless art." - Toni Morrison
